Months before vaulting to the top of the veepstakes, Rep. Paul Ryan got under President Barack Obama's skin by calling for killing the president's favored green-energy subsidies.

A fiscal blueprint passed by Ryan's House Budget Committee in March called for “Ending Cronyism and Corporate Welfare.” And it said it would “immediately terminate all programs that allow government to play venture capitalist with taxpayers’ money” — a clear shot at programs like the one that aided Solyndra.

Those efforts drew a rebuke from Obama during a March 21 visit to a Boulder City, Nev., photovoltaic plant, where he marveled that “if some politicians had their way, there won’t be any more public investment in solar energy.”

“If these guys were around when Columbus set sail, they’d be charter members of the Flat Earth Society,” Obama said at the time, adding: “That [is] a lack of imagination, a belief that you can’t do something in a new way — that’s not how we operate here in America. That’s not who we are. That’s not what we’re about.”

But Ryan's critique dovetails perfectly with the months of attacks that Mitt Romney, the Republican National Committee and GOP-aligned super PACs have made against Obama's energy programs, especially the one that awarded Solyndra a $535 million loan guarantee.

Romney visited Solyndra's shuttered California headquarters in May, calling it “a symbol of how the president thinks about free enterprise: Free enterprise to the president means taking money from the taxpayers and giving it freely to his friends.”

Like Romney — and matching the current GOP orthodoxy on energy policy — Ryan's budget blueprint advocates opening up new lands and waters to oil and gas drilling while eliminating EPA regulations that conservatives call impediments to energy production.

The budget resolution from Ryan's panel said its strategy “scales back spending on government bureaucracies that are seeking to impose a job-­destroying national energy tax. It assumes increased revenues from bonus bids, rents, royalties, and fees as a result of lifting moratoriums and bans on safe, environmentally responsible exploration for domestic energy supplies. And it allows private development of all American-made energy, including nuclear, wind and solar.

“Ultimately, the best energy policy is one that encourages robust competition and innovation to ensure the American people an affordable and stable supply of energy,” the resolution read.

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 5:06 a.m. on August 11, 2012.